Suggestions for further reading
We are living in a golden age for scholarship on the Tudor dynasty and on the Reformation. The following is only a brief list of recommendations from a much larger array of books, articles, and Internet materials that will interest the general reader as well as the student.
General reading on the Tudors
Over the last five decades, Henry VIII and his reign have been the subject of many perceptive studies of lasting value. As a starting place, readers might like to consult entries for individual members of the Tudor court through The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), which is available in bound volumes in research libraries and on the Internet through local and university libraries.
J. J. Scarisbrick’s Henry VIII (Yale, 1997), which was first published in 1968, remains unequalled for its examination of the king’s ‘Divorce’ from Katherine of Aragon, the royal supremacy, and the diplomatic conundrums that the king confronted in setting policy for the realm. In the Routledge Historical Biography series, Henry VIII by L. Wooding (second edition, London, 2015) is unusually helpful. D. Starkey’s Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII (New York, 2003) is a valuable guide to all of Henry’s marriages. E. Ives produced an important biography: The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: ‘The Most Happy’ (Oxford, 2005). For her religion, see E. Ives, ‘Anne Boleyn on Trial Again’, JEH, vol. 62 (2011), pp. 766–8. His last book, Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery (Oxford, 2009), unpacks the confusing events that brought Mary Tudor to the throne, and it provides a sensitive account of the brief life of ‘the nine days’ queen’. In addition to his award-winning biography of Thomas Cranmer, D. MacCulloch has also written extensively for the sixteenth century and the Reformation, including The Boy King: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation (London, 2001). For the Routledge Historical Biography series, J. R. Richards has written Mary Tudor (London, 2008) and Elizabeth I (London, 2011).
As an introduction to the factional struggles inside the Tudor court, many people now start with H. Mantel’s award-winning trilogy on the career of Thomas Cromwell, beginning with Wolf Hall, and Bring Up the Bodies. Non-fiction studies of Cromwell’s career include Policy and Police: The Enforcement of the Reformation in the Age of Thomas Cromwell (Cambridge, 1985) by G. R. Elton; The Rise of Thomas Cromwell: Power and Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII, 1485–1534 (New Haven, 2015) by M. Everett; and Thomas Cromwell: Servant to Henry VIII by D. Loades (2015). Further work on Cromwell is expected by D. MacCulloch.
General reading on the Reformation
Martin Luther continues to command attention for his instrumental role in challenging the power of the Roman Catholic Church. In addition to many other valuable studies, readers who want to understand Luther from the perspective of a successful author would do well to read A. Pettegree’s Brand Luther: How an Unheralded Monk Turned His Small Town into a Center of Publishing, Made Himself the Most Famous Man in Europe – and Started the Protestant Reformation (Penguin, 2015). Professor Pettegree has also written Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion (Cambridge, 2005). In the Routledge Historical Biography series, M. A. Mullitt has written a comprehensive introduction in Martin Luther (London, 2014).
For other important Reformation figures, see M. Greschat’s Martin Bucer: A Reformer and His Times (2004), J. Dawson’s John Knox (New Haven, 2015), T. Kirby’s The Zurich Connection and Tudor Political Theology (Leiden, 2007), as well as many other valuable studies. Amongst recent biographies of Sir Thomas More is Peter Ackroyd’s The Life of Thomas More (London, 1998). Also recommended is A. Dillon’s Michelangelo and the English Martyrs (Aldershot, 2012).
For parish life in England before the Reformation, E. Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Life in England 1400–1580 (New Haven, 2005) is unsurpassed except by his Fires of Faith: Catholic England under Mary Tudor (New Haven, 2010).
Readers will also want to consult P. Marshall’s The Oxford Illustrated History of the Reformation (Oxford, 2015) and A. Ryrie’s Being Protestant in Reformation Britain (Oxford, 2013).